In the days leading up to the height of the Perseid Meteor Shower, I happened to have worked out a mini vacation trip to Colorado and Wyoming. During the trip, whenever I was camping out, I was shooting astro-lapse sequences as the weather allowed. The culmination of these sequences is the astro-lapse video link below. The sequences were shot on the nights of 8/7, 8/9, 8/11, and 8/12. Between the two cameras,I captured no fewer than 130 meteors (actually now 131, as I just found a new one in one of the stills while reviewing a sequence the other day). Most nights I did not stay up to watch the show, being exhausted from the day’s activities, so I only got up to adjust and re-time the cameras. However, while I was up, I would see 2-3 meteors in that short time. The night of 8/11, morning of 8/12, I stayed up for about 75 minutes. In that time I counted 40 or so meteors, no fewer than 8-10 were fireballs. And half of the rest were easily 1st magnitude or brighter. (repeating this time frame and observing the following night/morning, which was post-peak, resulted in only 9 meteors, a dramatic drop-off from 24 hours earlier).
Enjoy the video, feel free to share it as you think people might like to see. 😎
JHU/APL Astronomy Club 